Halloween

Halloween was an interesting day for us this year. We didn't have any costumes planned for ourselves, which was totally weird. We usually plan a couples costume of some kind and go somewhere dressed up. This year we figured what's the point of buying a costume if no one is really going to see it. Initially we had thought since Tre was going to be a monkey that we should make him Curious George and Jammer could be The Man in the Yellow Hat. But the costume for The Man in the Yellow Hat was $40 and had to be shipped and we decided that it wouldn't be worth $50 to get the costume.

Thankfully we didn't spend the money on a costume for Jammer because Tre was not a fan of his monkey costume. I can understand though, the weather was so warm this year for Halloween that he was roasting in his costume. It is pretty much like an insulated sleeping bag with a hood. Poor little guy was cooking in it when we were in the house putting him in it then he tolerated it a little bit while we were out and about walking the neighborhood across the street, but was over it probably less than 30 minutes into the walking around. It didn't help that he was pretty tired as well. He had had a rough day all around. He woke up at 4:45am and didn't go back to sleep until 7:30am. Then waking up around 10:45am and went down for a nap at 1:25pm and then waking at 2:55pm so he had to last from 2:55pm until after the Halloween festivities. Long time for this little guy to be awake. But we made it through and he finally went down to sleep around 7:45pm.

Now another difficulty was trying to get some pictures, first off, I forgot our camera when we went out to walk around the neighborhood because it was so crazy getting out of the house, Tre was fussy after we put him in his costume and we were trying to get out of the house quickly to get out and get Tre back. Our neighbors Tyler, Monet and their son Terje met up with us at our house and we all went across the street together. Terje is 15 months old and is such a cutie, I enjoyed having him join us for our Halloween walk across the street because he is much more aware of what's going on and looked really curious and interested in what was going on. He was dressed as Linus from the Peanuts comic by Charles Schulz. Monet was dressed up as a Jedi from Star Wars and Tyler was a crazy mustache man (hehe). We got a sort of group photo after we were done walking around across the street with my cellphone so I took the pic and got the rest of the group in the photo. This is the only picture I have of Tre where he isn't crying in his monkey costume. Bummer because we took the family photo after the group photo and we couldn't get Tre to stop crying for the camera, he would stop and we would go to take the picture and he would start again. He was very tired and wanted to get out of his costume. I couldn't believe how warm it was for October 31st. Oh and I forgot to mention that Jammer and I decided to dig out our old Gangster and Flapper costumes so we could dress up as well.

Since we are parents now and having a little one at home makes going out a bit more difficult Jammer and I decided that it would be fun to have our neighbors Tyler & Monet and Kate & Will come over and play some games and just hang out for Halloween. I was so glad that we did because it was so much fun and we learned a new way to play Uno according to Tyler & Monet (which they called it Speed Uno). It was a lot of fun and at the end of the night as it was reaching midnight we were so tired but we were having so much fun we didn't want the night to end, however being that we are all parents of little ones it was in our best interest to at least get a little bit of rest. It's been so great to have neighbors in our building that are in the same boat as us with little boys (their boys are 15 months old - funny that both their boys were born in July last year and Tre was born in July this year). Here is a picture of the boys (Tyler, Jammer and Will) enjoying their Halloween tequila shot to get the night started.

As you can see from the picture at the very top that while I was trying to get practice shots of Tre in my wanna-be studio (horribly attempted but did the job) he was doing pretty well at being calm and content with where I was positioning him. Then I put the monkey costume on and he wasn't as content (again, it was so hot, we needed to be in a colder climate for this costume to work comfortably). Here are a few other Halloween pics for you to check out. I also got a couple of Noa too. He was so intrigued with what was going on where I was setting things up that he wanted to pose as well (I think his modeling experience for Tessa May Greeting Cards came back to him and he felt he needed to be positioned on the "stage").

Enjoy the pics and I hope everyone had a great Halloween.

Here is Tre on his belly, look at that cute little monkey tail (that's why I put him on his tummy, I wanted to show the cute tail). He wasn't really happy about being on his tummy (as you can see by the blurred face), but it had to be done. HEHE!

Here is Tre sitting in his boppy to prop him up in his monkey costume. He was kind of mad.

Here is a cute little position Tre sits in all the time, he likes to hold his hands close together like a reverent little man. So cute that he is figuring out his hands and likes to hold them together.

He has been sitting up leaned over lately when we prop him up (obviously since he can't quite sit up on his own yet). Thought this was really cute. I think he looks more like his Mommy in this pic...hehe!

Now for the Noa Pictures...





Lastly, my Mom sent me some cute pics of their dogs Holly and Natasha dressed up for Halloween. It was cool, they had a baby gate at the front door with the front door open so the dogs could help with the trick or treating. Holly (the min pin) is dressed up as a witch and Natasha (the siberian husky) is dressed in her Halloween hat.

Happy Halloween!!!!

P.S. We have a 4 month check up appointment for Tre on Tuesday, November 4th so we'll get an update on his weight & length. Unfortunately, he'll be getting some shots too. I'll update after that appointment.

Happy 16 Week Birthday Tre!

Wow, I lagged on getting this one posted. It's been a busy week. We are thinking Tre is beginning to start teething because he has had a few crying sessions that are unexplainable and he is constantly drooling and putting his hands in his mouth. He minorly did that for the past month but it seems to have intensified lately. Sorry for the short post but I wanted to get this out. I'll post more with the Halloween pics and stuff.

Jammer's Birthday Pics

Yay, I finally received the pictures from Jammer's 30th Birthday with Jammer's family on October 5th.

I'll just load here all the cute pics that were taken... ENJOY!

Justin, Malia, Jammer, Donelle & Tre


Justin, Malia, Jammer, Donelle, Tre, Tutu & Papa Johnny


Jammer, Donelle, Kathy (Tre's Tutu), Tre, Tutu & Papa Johnny


Donelle, Kathy (Tre's Tutu), Tre & Jammer


Donelle, Kathy (Tre's Tutu), Tre, Jammer, Justin, Malia & Tutu

Visit with Uncle Justin

Jammer's brother Justin (and his friend Linda) came down to the new Anderson family beach townhouse in Leucadia. We came over to the house after Tre's afternoon nap and spent the evening there. We planned to have dinner together. We went to look at the sunset before we ate dinner. Unfortunately, it was a bit too cloudy to see it, but we hung out for a few minutes, looked at the ocean and I got a few cute pictures of Tre spending time with his Uncle Justin.

I think Tre enjoys the ocean, the sound seems to calm him and he likes looking around.

It was a fun afternoon spending time with Justin and his friend Linda. We enjoyed some yummy food, watched When Harry Met Sally and talked a bit before we all had to head to our homes.

And on another note, on Saturday afternoon I went by my friend Edith's house to pick up the walker that her daughters had used to see if Tre would enjoy it. Even though his legs don't reach the floor yet, he has had this desire to sit up lately and all of the toys we have don't let him sit up and check things out as well as the walker. We put him in it and he seems to really like it. Here is a picture of him in the walker yesterday morning.



Here are a few other pics from yesterday afternoon...

Happy 15 Week Birthday Tre!

Today was an interesting day. Tre spent more time awake than he did asleep. He took a 3 hour nap this morning and then was awake for the remainder of the day until around 8pm with a 25 minute nap in the middle of the day. He was actually in such a good mood too considering he wasn't sleeping all that much. We didn't do anything super exciting today but just kept each other company. We played with his toys, put him in a snugli and walked around the neighborhood and house, went to the grocery store and got gas at Costco. Entertaining day, huh? I love the picture that I posted to at the top left with Tre and Noa looking at each other. Noa is so intrigued with Tre and Tre is finally noticing and actually paying attention.

One thing I have noticed is it is pretty tiring entertaining a baby all day long, especially a baby that is going through a growth spurt and I can imagine it only gets tougher to run around after them when they start moving, but it's pretty fun too. It is 9pm and I am sooo..tired and ready for bed. Not much else to say this evening so I am just going to leave with a couple videos for your viewing pleasure. The first video is kind of funny because Tre is working real hard on pulling on his rings that hang next to his bouncy. Moments before I turned on the camera he was making coo sounds and laughing but the minute the camera turned on he froze. Finally after a few attempts the second video I am loading is of Tre talking to me.

Pumpkin Patch

Now that I have a little one I was so excited to take him to the pumpkin patch to get some cute festive October pictures. He wasn't the smiliest of children while we were there but was tolerant. Since he is still a little on the young side he couldn't really appreciate the entire idea behind the pumpkin patch but we roamed around and got a picture each with him and a few pics with him sitting with the pumpkins.

We went to Stu Miller's Pumpkin Patch on Manchester Avenue and Encinitas Blvd. We probably would've hung out a little longer and maybe even pumpkin shopped but Tre was passed nap time and he was getting fussy towards the end of the visit to the patch. We just needed to get a few pictures and get our little one home for his nap. I wish we could've played a little more with the pictures but we probably put him through enough torture.

We put him in a new pair of jeans I just bought him and a cute collared shirt that made him look like a little man. Plus he wore his cute little Etnies shoes I got him before he was born. It was fun to roam around the pumpkin patch, it had been quite a while since I had been to one. There really was no reason for me to go in the past many years since I didn't have any little munchkin to take with me or go with.

Here are a few more pics from today:








We tried to get him to stand behind the pumpkin and lean on it.


This little face was too cute, but it was minutes before he started to cry.

Cousin's Baby Shower

So my cousin Jarid and his wife Stacey are having a baby. I'm pretty sure I have mentioned it in previous posts but I am SOOOO...excited about it. Jarid and I grew up together and I would consider us to be pretty close even though he lives in the OC and I live in SD. He's like a brother to me and when I found out at our Father's Day BBQ this year that they were pregnant I was so happy because that meant that Tre was going to have someone very close in age to him to grow up with. That means so much to me because I know how special it is to have that closeness with family and especially at family get togethers to have a buddy to play with.

Then when it was time to find out what they were having the big news was they are having a boy!!! I was all the more excited because Tre could have a male buddy close to his age. Since my side of the family is strongly female it is great to bring some more males into the family! Even though my nephew is 4, I know it'll be great for him to have some more boys to play with (once Tre gets older and able to play with his cousin). Then to have my cousin having a boy, who will be named Brandon, will be so exciting! Poor Masonn (my nephew) is surrounded by girls right now, soon enough Tre will be running around and at least then Masonn won't be the only boy.

Anyways, the shower was yesterday and it took place at Stacey's parents' house. I got there a little late since we had a diaper emergency as I was getting ready to leave the house. Tre messed up his cute outfit that I had put him in (luckily before we left and not on the road). So we were about 30 minutes late, but it worked out okay. Tre was a good boy most of the way up there, cried a little bit about 20 minutes into the drive but passed out after about 10 or 15 minutes. Then woke up right as we got to the shower and was in good spirits for the first 30 minutes or so. There was something about the echo in the living room and all the chattering women that was starting to upset Tre, his bottom lip was puckering out every once in a while and he just seemed to be more and more bothered. Then something set him off and he was a very unhappy little boy, started crying really hard and nothing would calm him down. Poor little guy! My Mom and I took him out to the front yard to try and calm him down and probably after 10 minutes he stopped crying (seemed like forever). So we brought him back into the living room and again maybe 5 minutes of being in the living room he started to cry again. My Mom decided to take him out of the echoing living room and into another room to calm him down while I had a quick bite to eat (I was starving). Off and on he calmed down but really didn't like to be in the living room with all the noise.

I finished eating and figured maybe he was hungry, it had been a few hours since he ate and he is going through a growth spurt right now so his hunger level is much higher and more frequent. He would not eat and fought with me on that (hard to find a comfortable place to feed at someone else's house too). He was so passed calming down that he would not eat. It was turning into a nightmare, I was ready to give up and go home! I figured what fun would it be to spend the entire time in one of the bedrooms at the house. Plus if Tre was so unhappy, why would I continue to stay where he would not calm down. I wrapped him up in the Moby Wrap and at first he was a little upset but slowly started to calm down to the point that I was able to stand in the back of the living room (to avoid getting too far into the living room to upset him) and watch Stacey open her presents. I would occasionally go to the bathroom to show Tre the mirror which would make him laugh and smile (just to keep him in good spirits). That lasted for a while, but he started to get upset maybe 30 mins later and I figured that he must be hungry since it had been quite a few hours at this point since his last feeding. So I tried to feed him again (in a different room this time) and that set him off AGAIN! Boy oh boy...I was at a loss, my Mom came into the room again at this point and told me to take a break and she then got him to fall asleep. She must be knocking him out or something when I leave the room because this is the second time she has gotten him to fall asleep (just teasing Mom). So he slept for about 30 minutes while I got to chit chat with the people that were left at the shower (by this time the shower was over - I had pretty much missed most of it). But the best part of it probably was after everyone left that I didn't know. I talked with the people who were left and pretty much right on the dot 30 minutes later I had a feeling I needed to check on Tre and he was crying and ready to get up. So I brought him out of the room and he was being the little sweetie that I know him to be. He was smiling at everyone and even giggling a little. At this point the only people left were Stacey's parents & sister, my Mom, my sister Jill, my sister Jennifer, my niece Breanna, my cousin's Jarid & Darren and Darren's girlfriend Jenna. So a few people held Tre and we all hung out and talked and by this time it was getting close to time for me to get home. I decided to attempt to feed Tre one more time and took him into one of the bedrooms and YAY...he ate! I had to get creative to get him to eat, but he ate for 15 minutes so I was very happy about that! Then I came out of the room and felt much better about the day knowing that Tre had at least eaten a good amount of food.

Then my sis Jennifer was holding Tre and after a while she had rocked him to sleep and I knew then I had better get going while he was in sleep mode so I wouldn't have a crying baby on the way home. I packed myself up and out the door I went. I was sad to go because I really enjoyed hanging out with everyone and just talking and laughing, etc.

On the way home it was peace and quiet for probably 30-40 minutes and then the sleeping baby awoke and began to fuss. It wasn't too horrible, but still so hard to listen to him cry and not be able to do anything about it.

We got home and Jammer was home from work so he came down to get Tre from his car seat and carried him upstairs to the house. Tre was happy to see his Daddy and I think the change of scenery calmed Tre down. He was a happy baby again. He must really love his home. HEHE!

Things were back on track when we got to the house, he played with Daddy for a while and then I fed him and he got ready for bed. I was happy to be home and able to relax. I was so exhausted from all the stress of the day that I made dinner and then got ready for bed. Long Day!! But the visiting with family good parts was worth it!

I'm sad to say since I was so busy with Tre most of the time I didn't get many pictures, I really wanted to get a picture with the Mommy-to-be Stacey but didn't get a chance to. I did get a picture of my cousin Jarid holding Tre and my sister Jennifer holding Tre when he was falling asleep.


Jarid and Tre


Jennifer and Tre

Published

So I've been looking for other avenues of making money (since my web design biz is kinda slow right now) and decided to try my skill at writing articles for a designer blog. I found some of my books that I have used for designing and thought I would write about something simple to start and see how it goes from there. I am happy to announce that my article has been published on a designer blog called Designerside.

:::Unfortunately, Designerside is no longer so my article is gone, but it was cool while it lasted:::

To check out the article you can go to:

http://designerside.com/article/four-basic-design-principles

Happy 14 Week Birthday Tre!

Today was a fun day, my Mom came down to spend the day with Tre and I and help me out with taking Cyrus to the vet. Cy has asthma and it was flaring up so it was time to take him in, but taking Cyrus in his crate and carrying Tre and his car seat was going to be impossible for me to accomplish on my own so my Mom came down to help me get through the vet visit. Thanks Mom!

She got to my house around noon and we talked for a bit before Tre woke up from his nap. Then the little guy woke up so I fed him and then we got ourselves situated to get on the road to the vet which took some time getting Cy in his crate and then getting Tre in his car seat and getting out the door. Then we were on our way to the vet which then took longer than anticipated. But finally getting out of there an hour later Cy got taken care of and we were heading back to my house to eat our lunch.

Tre took a 15 minute power nap in the car and woke up ready to play again. Lucky day for my Mom since he was awake the majority of the time she was here. Then shortly after she left it was time for him to eat, then Jammer got home from surfing Trestles and we got ready to go for a walk to Baskin Robbins for some ice cream across the street, then back to get our little munchkin down for his nighttime nap. It was cool, we attempted to walk Tre with Jammer holding him in the Baby Bjorn since he usually gets fussy when being buckled into his car seat. In the car seat he can't see as well as when he is being held so we figured this would be a good option and he loved it. He was looking around the entire walk and didn't fuss once. It was pretty cool and I think he was definitely stimulated enough to get him ready for a good night's sleep. We'll see how long he sleeps.

It was a great day and I was definitely happy to have my Mom here to hang out with me.

Jammer's 30th Birthday Dinner

Yesterday was Jammer's birthday dinner at my parent's house. It also included my brother-in-law Ed since both Jammer and Ed's birthdays are in October. The libra hubbies! I'm bummed since I was so busy with Tre I didn't get to get as many pictures as I would've liked to. So there is only one picture of the birthday boy playing with my nieces, Jadenn & McKenna. :::check out Tre's little Charger gear::: GO CHARGERS!

We got up to my parents house around 3:15pm and it was just my sister, Ashley and my parents. Tre was not napping very well, only took a short 2 hour nap in the morning and then napped for 25 minutes once we got into the car and then for a good 30 mins or so he was crying off and on and wouldn't fall back to sleep. Then the last 15 minutes of the drive he slept and woke up when we got to my parents house. My Mom was very excited to hold him and took him immediately. She was a huge help in getting him to rest the two times we got him down to sleep. He took a short nap later on when he was really fussy and I don't know how my Mom did it, but she got that little munchkin to sleep for 30 minutes, then he woke up and wouldn't go back to sleep, just in time for dinner. Great! My Mom came to the rescue again and held him while I quickly ate my dinner and then I took over so she could eat. After a while he started to get sleepy and fussy again so I put him in my Moby Wrap for a while to relax him and so he could be there while Jammer opened his gifts, then it was time for the little guy to go to sleep and again my Mom, the miracle worker, got him to fall asleep and this time he was down for the count. We packed him up with only a tiny noise from Tre as we put him in his car seat, then he slept the entire drive home (thank goodness) and we took him out of the car seat and directly into his bassinet with hardly any movement from him. He didn't end up waking up again until 2am for a little feeding.

It was fun to spend the afternoon with my family, always a treat to be able to enjoy the amazing food that is made and just chatting with everyone to see how things are going.

Tomorrow my niece Breanna is having surgery on her MCL. She injured it playing soccer, such a bummer besides the fact that the injury is a bummer in general but she was getting ready to start on the soccer team in high school and injured herself just before school started. I'll be thinking good thoughts all day tomorrow for a safe and successful surgery.

Oh and one last thing, I'm pretty excited, I wrote an article for a design website and it got published today. Check it out...
http://designerside.com/article/four-basic-design-principles

More Pics...

My niece Breanna and Tre

My niece McKenna and I

My niece Breanna and sister Ashley

Tre is 3 Months Old

Today is October 9th the official 3 months date from Tre's birth. Can't believe that just 3 months ago my little boy looked like this picture to the left. Even though official isn't really exact since by weeks he is already at 13 weeks. So weird how the calendar was created so uneven, very frustrating in counting developmental age at the beginning of a baby's life since each week they change, as we get older week to week isn't even close to the drastic changes a baby can make so years are much easier to count our age, but man, Tre changes each week, sometimes in days something new has evolved. :)

Unfortunately, Jammer had to work today so it's just me and little Tre hanging out (and Noa of course). He was a little off schedule today due to his delay in yesterday's schedule, he woke up an hour later than usual (which was great), but then was awake for longer and didn't go down for a nap until around 10am, where normally he goes down for his nap around 8:30am. So we'll see how long he naps for and how this day evolves. I could deal with this new change in schedule as it gives me an hour longer to sleep in the morning and allows Tre to stay awake a little bit later in the evening which gives Jammer more time to play with him when he gets home from work. On the schedule he was on, if Jammer worked he probably only had like 30 minutes of quality time with Tre before he started to fuss and went to bed, which meant that he had to rush in the door, say HI, change his work clothes and get back out in the living room, not really given the chance to unwind a bit, so it could definitely work for us if this is how Tre wants to manage his day.

We'll see, as any parent knows, babies' schedules change constantly when they are this young, but we'll keep working on it and figuring if he still has a time similar schedule I can pretty much figure out how the day is going to be by hours instead of exact times. Not easy for appointments and things to be set but when we are just spending the day at home with activities while he is awake it's pretty nice.

It's later in the evening now and the day turned out pretty well. He's in his bassinet, not 100% asleep but relaxing and getting sleepy. Jammer got to come home to a happy little baby ready to spend time with Daddy while Mommy got dinner prepared. I could get used to this! :)

Happy 13 Week Birthday Tre!

Wow, another week has passed. I don't know how many times I can say it, but time freakin flies!!! Tre is learning a ton about how to use his hands to grab things, he has reached many times for toys and gotten a hold of them, even reached for my face and tugged on things. It's so cute to watch him take the world in. We take walks, we play with his toys, we sit on the patio and we talk to each other. He is cuter and cuter every day.

Scheduling has become a bit easier to try to establish, I hope it lasts. Mornings and evenings are pretty predictable. He will sleep a couple hours after waking up and he will go to bed sometime between 6:30pm and 8:30pm. Today was kind of weird though, maybe it was the heat but he slept for a bit longer this morning and then after a few hours he slept for another long nap which kind of messed with when he normally goes to bed. So he was up later than he normally is and didn't really want to go to bed for a few hours, but eventually fell asleep after a little "sssshhh'ing" from me.

Not sure what he is doing when he sleeps but sometimes he's got plumber crack when he wakes up but I don't realize until I am feeding him and he has a bit of a blow out up out of the top of his diaper which required me to change his outfit twice today. Geez!

Jammer went surfing for a few hours this morning and then spent some quality time with his little boy before he went down for his nap, then while he was sleeping I went to run a few errands and came home with dinner to prepare. We ended up waking Tre up because it was getting late and we didn't want him to sleep too late and then not go to bed at a decent hour so Jammer played with Tre and spent quite a bit of time with him while I was preparing dinner. I ended up trying a new recipe that I had seen on "Take Home Chef" on TLC. I've always wanted to find some good fish recipes because we talk about making some fish dinners but don't have any recipes. The recipe that they had on the show (one of my recordings on the DVR) looked pretty yummy that I thought I would try it out and since I had to go to the store it worked out to go get some things to complete the recipe. The original recipe that I saw was Mussels and Snapper steamed in Coconut Milk with Chili and Lemon Grass. I modified it a little bit since the grocery store didn't have any mussels, so I used clams. I added Couscous to the meal which I think really enhanced the meal because there was something to absorb the sauce and eat the fish with. I also used one less red jalapeno chili because I'm not a big fan of spice and it seemed to have enough kick for both Jammer and I. Also, my hands were stinging and my face (from itching it during cooking) after the fact due to the pepper, which is still bothering me. I hope it goes away before I have to feed Tre. I worry that it'll get on him and that could ruin my chances of sleeping tonight. Cross our fingers to avoid that issue! Anyways, dinner was great and I was quite impressed with my cooking skills since it all turned out so yummy.

Well, off to bed.